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This game is just the worst of AAA gaming - unskippable cutscenes, every 5 minutes; handholding; constantly taking the controls away from you. It takes hours to wade through the unskippable tutorial. And the graphics may have been awe inspiring when it first came out, I dunno, but today it just feels like Midjourney, overdone, scifi meets fantasy tryhard.
I stuck with it for 10 hours, and never felt like I was playing the game - its one of the few games that gives me visceral negative feelings when I think of ever playing it again.
It seems most other reviews are raving about the story, voice acting etc - well, they should have just made a movie - because this was not a fun game to play.
God of War is a fantastic video game that takes a different route than the previous God of War series, yet is able to stay true to its origins just the same. My little brother played the OG god of war with its hack and slash action back in the day all the time, and while this is a different experience of an older and more grounded Kratos, you can still find the same level of puzzles and detail to combat.
I am aware that a lot of people have grown to dislike God of War 2, with its subpar storyline when compared to the first game, as well as its forced diversity (Loki's future wife, the frost giant Angrboda, suddenly just happens to look like an african girl despite the clearly scandinavian location? Really?) and suddenly passivism (even though it makes "somewhat" sense Atreus to take a different route than his father). However, I can promise you, Sweet Baby Inc had no hand in making this masterpiece.
Just ignore the sequel, pretend it never existed, and indulge yourself (again) into this amazing video game made by writers with a clearly unbiased passion for the series. God of War rocks!
I played this back on PS4, after clearing the rest of the series on PS3 through the Bluepoint HD collections, plus III and Ascension respectively.
I wasn't happy with the new combat system, mostly for the enemy roster not being all that fun to fight compared to past titles and the radial danger system being a poor crutch for the new camera perspective. I also wasn't happy with several sections being blatant filler, the very short list of spectacular bosses, Atreus/Mimir giving plenty of redundant barks during combat, and some challenges boiling down to how well your gear and abilities will prepare you for them. Bear McCreary does great work but his talent was wasted on what was a very forgettable soundtrack compared to previous titles. Probably the most damning thing for me personally, for one reason or another, was the replacement of TC Carson as Kratos, who no doubt the script was written with his specific delivery in mind.
All that being said, for a game about a destroyer of worlds finding solice and purpose in a new realm of mythology, it was pretty damn promising for the future of the series. Presentation is top-notch, the combat had a much greater identity than the usual action-RPG, and the overall expansion from the linear gauntlet to an open-world campaign was the shakeup the series truly needed. Despite my gripes leaning on personal preference for what I would've seen as a more ideal return for Kratos, along with narrative and design constantly being at odds with each other, the game overall did a lot right.
How Ragnarok continued (squandered) this potential is a whole other can of worms, but the work done on God of War '18 still makes it one of the best of its kind. Now if I can just get the Greek saga remastered (not remade) on PC, I can stop being an old man yelling at clouds.
good game but i struggled to run it at times, only crashes, the game runs great when it does run but will crash randomly, 5600X with 4060 and 64G ram 3200Mt, can run ultra with 1080p at a locked 75 but still crashs at times
